HBO has announced its working on a five-part miniseries on the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

The five-part series, to begin production next spring, will star Jared Harris as a Soviet scientist tapped who investigates the accident.

It will dramatize the events of the 1986 nuclear catastrophe that resulted in widespread radioactive fallout. The Ukranian city was evacuated on 27 April 1986, 30 hours after the disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which was the most disastrous nuclear accident in history.

The event occurred during a late-night test which simulated a station blackout power-failure and in which safety systems were deliberately turned off. A combination of design flaws and operating errors resulted in uncontrolled reaction conditions.

In the aftermath of the accident, 237 people suffered from acute radiation sickness, 31 of whom died within the first three months, and more than 100,000 people had to be relocated.